


Breach of the Forsaken

by Nikers13



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BAMF Cas, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Cas Whump, Castiel (Supernatural) Whump, Episode: s13e21 Beat the Devil, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Protective Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-26 03:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikers13/pseuds/Nikers13
Summary: Letting go of Sam never was Dean's thing.When his brother is pulled into the depths of darkness, Dean follows after him recklessly--but he's not alone.{Episode tag for S13, E21: Beat the Devil}





	Breach of the Forsaken

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, a re-do of the cavern scene in Season 13, Episode 21: Beat the Devil wherein Dean doesn't let himself be convinced to leave Sam behind and chases after him. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was a bit baffled at that character choice, but I understood it was a sacrifice made necessary for the plot to move forward the way they had envisioned for the season as a whole.
> 
> With that being said, this idea simply wouldn't leave me alone after watching the episode. I didn't originally intend to post it--this is my first stab at writing fanfiction--but having been a casual reader of Supernatural fanfic for some time, I finally worked up the nerve to share it. If there is interest, I do have some ideas for more chapters, but I wanted to see what the reception was like first before I really started to grind out the details.

     "Sammy!"

     Pinned and prone, the young Winchester wrestles against the arms constraining him. These vamps are strong—unusually strong. Dean knows as much, locked in his own struggle against the rough curvature of this sorry excuse for a pass. Or tunnel. Or whatever you want to call this hell-hole. But his suspicions about these Apocalypse-world equivalents are confirmed as he watches his brother lose the battle against them, because no… No. There’s _no_ way normal vamps would overpower Sam so easily. These creatures are more ravenous, vicious and powerful than any run-of-the-mill monster they’ve encountered and subsequently slayed in their own world.

     And, shit, if that didn’t make Dean want to kill them more…

     As if on cue, one of the aforementioned, definitely-juicing vamps twists his brother’s arm back viciously, leaving his neck painfully exposed. Dean’s grappling becomes more urgent. He’s overwhelmed; it takes nearly everything he has just to keep his path of vision to Sam clear. Every movement he makes is matched in turn, and he’s left at a sickening standstill with only the haunting memory of past nightmares to fill in the blanks when one of the vamps inevitably swings in between his sight.

     And it is at the exact moment he finally gains an advantage that, just like in his nightmares, the unspeakable inexorably comes to pass.

     He watches as the vamps’ teeth sink into his brother’s neck.

     It is agony as his name is called out: a last, vain hope.

     "Dean!"

     And he watches as the vamp pulls away, flesh deeply entrenched in his jagged teeth, and the first gush of precious blood spurts from what Dean can only assume is his brother’s carotid artery.

     It paints Dean’s vision red.

     "Sam!" he screams, burrowing the butt of his gun into the gut of his attacker.

     Time accelerates exponentially as he pulls his eyes away.

     As soon as he gets one vamp down, it is replaced by another. Their screeches echo around him, pierce his ears, but nothing could overpower Sam’s moans. He swings the gun back around and catches a skull square. The body cripples into the dirt, giving way to a puddle of burgundy. Dean finds it impossible to equate the sight to his little brother—his Sammy—but as languished eyelids slip closed, so does Dean’s tendency towards mercy.

     The vamps gripping his brother’s arms flash him a gnarly smile. Dean’s blood boils; his grip tightens on alloyed steel, but his lunge is cut short by another vamp hoping to play a twisted game of piggy-back. It takes him only a few seconds to buck him off, yet it is enough for his brother to be dragged into the darkness.

     In a haze, Dean whips the barrel of his shotgun back-and-forth, struggling against the horde that continues to converge upon him. He barely even registers Cas’ cry and fading footsteps as he breaks free of the vamps’ grip after what seems like ages. He is almost stunned by the prospect before Maggie’s shriek brings him back into focus. He levels a vamp’s head with his barrel and pulls the trigger to a shower of flesh and bone.

     "Sam?" Cas’ voice calls out again, pleading.

     Dean lowers the shotgun. He can feel Maggie’s horror, but all his attention goes to the trail of blood on the ground. The twisted variation on Hansel and Gretel leads in the same direction as Cas’ distant reverberation, and Dean doesn’t hesitate. He’s already lost so much time. Maybe too—no, he can’t bring himself to think that.

     "Sammy!" he yells back, plunging headfirst into the murky shadows.

     He spots the green glow of Cas’ necklace and briefly allows himself to hope. It is quickly squashed when they collide, both empty-handed. Dean tries to shove past him, but he’s like a stone wall.

     "S-sam, what-?" he stutters.

     Cas’ gravelly voice is rougher than normal. “He’s gone.”

     "No!"

     "Dean!" Cas grabs him, shoves him back into position. “You don’t have time.”

     Dean’s breaths come in quick, frantic gasps.

     "You have to get the others to safety.”

     Dean rears against the angel’s stony grip. “You and Gabriel can lead them, I-”

     In the scramble to get free, one of Dean’s fists slips from Cas’ grip and clips his jaw. Dean’s knuckle prickles in pain. For a brief moment, he thinks he can slither free, but Cas’ grasp instantly returns and locks down even harder. He realizes with a tinge of remorse that the angel had been being gentle.

     For the first time, he allows his eyes to stray away from the darkness that holds Sam. Radiant blue orbs greet him, awash with grief and worry.

     "You have to find your mom.”

     Again for the first time, he acknowledges the pit in his stomach and allows that desperation to sink through unadulterated as he begs, “Cas…it’s Sam.”

     A beat. Cas’ grip slackens only slightly as he looks past Dean and at his own brother, the archangel, who stands solemnly at Maggie’s side. Dean finds that the further his adrenaline dissipates, the more he’s using Cas just to keep himself standing. But unbeknownst to him, Gabriel gives a wordless nod, and Castiel withdraws his hold. Dean nearly tips over without the support but is quickly reinvigorated when Cas moves out of his path and to his side.

     “Take this,” he says, extracting the glow stick from around his neck, “and stay close. It is dark.”

     The elder Winchester doesn’t need any other sign. He’s off and running before Cas can grumble another word. His strides are long and eager, even when it quickly becomes apparent that Cas’ words were not hollow. The suffocating darkness renders him utterly blind. Yet he dares not slow; he merely strides on, attune to the beating of his heart and the eerie reverb of the cavern for any signs of new vamps.

     Dean is already cursing himself for the dumbass strategy before the premonition wills itself into reality and he collides with an unmistakably fleshy body. The impact is mostly shoulder-to-shoulder, but it still knocks the breath out of him and sends his shotgun clattering to the floor. Worse, it throws him completely off-course. He stumbles forward several more yards until his balance finally teeters over and he’s thrust into the cold, cavern wall.

     Desperately trying to re-orientate himself using the minute flush of Cas’ glowstick, he hauls himself up and holds it out in front of his body, squinting against the edges of his vision. The first pass to his left yields nothing, but he can hear the vamp he’d hit shuffling towards him, growling.

     And he’s not alone.

     Suddenly, there’s a cacophony of shrieks coming from all sides of him, rebounding off earthy walls and contracting around Dean. The ricochet of noise and anarchy makes it even more difficult to place their sources—and himself for that matter.

     His arm passes to the right.

     The green hue reveals fringes of tattered clothing.

     Sharp fingernails pierce his forearm.

     He grunts and quickly responds with his opposite elbow. The vamp staggers back, stunned. Dean advances to finish the job, but it is cut off by another set of hungry hands. They claw and scratch at his chest, pulling at him from behind. He wrestles them into the wall, employing his elbow as his chief weapon once again. Three jabs to the abdomen does the trick, but he loses his grip on the glowstick in the process.

     It also burns enough time for three more apocalyptic vamps to congregate by his side.

     He takes a mad swing at the first to touch him and strikes jaw but is instantaneously subdued by his other two friends. Dean’s stubborn jerks makes it difficult for the vamps to keep him steady, so when teeth meet flesh, it is on Dean’s shoulder rather than his neck. The older Winchester cries out and rams himself back into the wall again, yet the teeth firmly embedded in his muscle still doesn’t shake free.

     As more ravenous bodies join the fray, jostling each other for position around him, Dean continues to blindly buck against the rock until the jaw finally tears free. He manages to rip one hand free when a piercing white light fills the air. Dean shields his eyes, and by the time he’s opening them again, a smooth metal hilt is slid into his hand.

     An angel blade.

     He smiles and deftly jams it into the vamp restraining his other hand, then swings around in a fluid motion to do the same to the one trapped behind him. He turns around to a smattering of intermittent light shows: streams of brightness accompanied by terrorized wails that leave his vision dancing between speckles of color.

     Not that it matters. He was blind either way.

     He fights his way a bit further, a bit closer to the source of the screams. Dean knows it’ll lead him to the place he needs to be. _He_ will lead him to the place he needs to be.

     Though the onslaught seems to be never-ending, the fight is made far easier by the presence of a weapon. Dean’s attacks are now swift and efficient. His defensive slashes border on the offensive, and with a partner by his side, their attackers are far more spread out, singling them out from the crowd and, in turn, making their strikes more predictable.

     Three hastened steps and the scuttle of loose pebbles alerts Dean. Quickly, he turns his back on his guide and slashes the blade out in a wide motion. It lands solidly with a high-pitched yelp, but abruptly his progress is halted as something bumps into his spine. He swings around—

     A hand locks onto his wrist. Dean calms the reflex to fight back. However, it is immediately evident: something is different. The familiar silhouette is now framed by a faint, natural backlight—a soft halo effect. The irony of such wouldn’t have been lost on Dean if it weren’t for the sense of urgency in his friend’s voice.

     “He’s there,” he barks over the chaos. “You have to get to him now. Go!”

     Dean uses the soft shove that follows as momentum. Cas has already cleared a relative path, but the vamps simply continue to emerge: from above, from behind or, most worryingly, from beyond, where Cas said Sam is. Thinking about it that way makes Dean glad that the bastards are coming at him and not his brother.

     Between dipping and dodging, Dean carefully picks his spots and uses the dagger sparingly, only when he is certain it won’t slow him down. His eyes naturally begin to adjust as the gradient becomes more pronounced. It’s a matter of yards, but Dean still feels like the journey has taken far too long.

     With one last duck and thrust, he breaks the final barrier and stumbles into a sheath of sunlight. There’s a break in the ceiling that concentrates the rays and sure enough, at its center, laying prone and stunningly motionless, is Sam.

     “Sammy,” he breathlessly mutters, carefully staggering around his brother’s long moose legs to get to his head. A murky stench callously presides over him like a damning cloud.

     He collapses to his knees. There’s blood on…down…in between… Too much blood. He ignores the puddle that swallows his pant legs as he reaches over and slides Sam’s head into his lap. The kid’s neck is a shredded mess. Blood languishingly rolls down from upon it and into his shirt collar, which sticks to his skin like a slow-drying adhesive.

     Dean swallows back nausea as well as heartbreak and begins to pat at his little brother’s cheeks. “Sam. Sammy! Come on, Sam. Come on.”

     He chances a glimpse up. Echoes of the continued skirmish reach him in delayed waves. Heavenly smitings, foul shrieks, and everything in between. But nothing surfaces from the black hole.

     “Cas!” he yells, hurried, before returning his gaze back to his brother. He murmurs his brother’s name several more times in the midst of checking his breathing—impossibly shallow—and heartbeat—faint and fading. He clamps a hand tight on the wound, lets out a string of curses at how cold Sam’s skin is, and tries Cas again. Rise and repeat: all while Sam remains unnervingly stagnant, unresponsive.

     It feels like centuries—damn his hyperboles are progressing—before the trench-coated figure finally appears, back turned to the desperate duo, reversing vigilantly.

     “Cas! Dammit, finally,” Dean exclaims, exchanging hasty glances to-and-fro. “Get over here. He’s barely breathing. I don’t think-”

     He stops himself, words seemingly lost to the angel’s back that remains turned. It sets off alarms in Dean’s head. He instinctively pulls Sam closer.

     “Cas?”

     The background comes into focus just as the angel pivots around to face him, puzzled and desolate. For at the threshold of the shadows, a raging horde of vampires scratch at an invisible barrier holding them back. It even muffles their raucous frenzy, as though it were taking place in the apartment next-door rather than right up in their own living room.

     Dean studies Cas’ face. He’s fairly certain by the size of those electric blue irises, but out of blind hope, he queries, “Cas? Did you do that?”

     Castiel takes a step forward, but his foot never hits the ground. Out of seemingly nowhere, a body hurdles into him, lifting him fully off the ground, and slams him into the wall, splintering the wooden paneling. Dean registers a familiar whisk of silver in the same breath. Before he can react, it’s whipped from the figure’s waist and plunged deep into Cas’ stomach. Dean hears the tip ingrain itself in timber and then his angel’s wail.

     “No!” he screams, stifling flashes of deja-vu. He’s reaching for Cas' blade when the force hits him. It knocks the air out of his lungs and flings him several feet backwards—skittering away from Sam and the blade, which goes scattering uselessly away from his reach. He snarls, writhes against the indistinguishable bonds, but it only earns him more sweat to his brow.

     Cas groans, and Dean whips his head up. Even at this angle, he wouldn’t mistake the scruffy blonde anywhere. He couldn’t. Not after…everything. But that didn’t make his appearance any less bewildering.

     “You son of a bitch,” he sneers. Every rebellious movement feels like it tightens the force’s restraint. “Let him go.”

     Lucifer, one arm pinning Cas’ chest and the other on the shiny hilt sunk deep into flesh and lumber, responds with a little twist. “Now, now, Dean. Do I need to wash your mouth out with soap?”

     Castiel seethes behind clenched teeth. “How did you get here?”

     “Let’s just say “Camptown Races” provided a little motivation. Always bet on the bobtail bag, Castiel. Always.”

     The Devil relishes the scowls he receives in return.

     “Oh, come on, guys! Why the long faces? I was gonna save pretty boy there when you interrupted.”

     “Bullshit!” Dean rasps with conviction.

     Lucifer _tisks_ , then ruthlessly draws the blade from Cas’ flesh only to plunge it right back in, adjacent to the now-glimmering wound. Dean roars in tandem with Castiel’s yelp of agony, but neither of them has the strength to pull free of their shackles. Dean is left fuming, knelt in the blood of his brother and laid witness to the crackling and flickering light of Cas’ wounds.

     “I warned you, Dean. Language.”

     The elder Winchester curses underneath his breath this time and catches Castiel’s gaze trailing to the blade on the floor. It’s well out of reach of Dean but only a step or two away from Cas if he can break loose of the Devil’s grip, and yet he’s working his fingers as though he wants to pull off the classic Jedi-lightsaber summoning trick.

     Dean shoots his eyes back to the blade. It isn’t moving.

      _He needs time_ , Dean tells himself.

     He levels Lucifer with a fittingly pissy look. “But we drained you.”

     “Sooo, how would I have the juice to pull off my little Lazarus trick? Uh, that’s a long story-”

     “He’s _not_ dead!” Dean interrupts, fury boiling over the surface.

     “Still. Better to be safe than sorry, don’t you think?”

     Dean catches a twitch of movement out of the corner of his eye. He peeks back at the blade. Seconds pass without a sign, but then, miraculously, it wobbles! He immediately looks back at Cas, trying to will him on without tipping off the Devil. _Come on, buddy. Come on!_

     All the while, their captor continues. “Y’know, on my way here, I came across a handful of Michael’s angels and, uh, ate ‘em.”

     That fully returns Dean’s attention.

     But the Devil is so casual; he continues in the same breath. “It’s funny ‘cause,” he chuckles. “If I had known I’d run into you, Castiel, I’m sure I could’ve let them go. Or, some of them.”

     Dean can sense where this is going and doesn’t like it one bit. His heartbeat throbs in his ears. He can no longer decide where to look: the Devil’s hand enclosed around the weapon that is inches away from killing his best friend, said friend’s strained expression, his blade’s increasingly shaky movements, or...

     “I mean, now I’ve got my mojo back. Well, not mine, per say, but…with you here…”

     He can’t tell if his brother’s chest is rising or falling.

     “I did expel a bit of energy…”

     The hilt lifts a full inch, and then topples back down.

     “I suppose I could use a top-off…”

     The Devil extracts his blade from Cas’ gut.

     A guttural scream emits from the angel’s throat.

     Silver lifts from soot.

     Lucifer brings his dagger to Cas’ throat.

     A swift streak through the air, and Cas’ open palm closes on steel.

     Lucifer breaks skin.

     But Cas breaks through an organ.

     As Lucifer crumples in on himself, Castiel’s feet hit the ground. He instantly cradles one arm around his wounds and uses the other, equipped with his angel blade, to keep himself upright. The Devil backtracks several steps, curled in at his core. He’s down but apparently not wounded enough to let Dean go, who is still left to watch, helpless to move.

     Dean knows he’s well and truly stuck but tries at another escape anyway. It’s useless.

     “Cas!” he yells. His friend labors at the wall, blood and grace seeping out from beneath the hand clutched at his stomach. “Cas, I’m still stuck! You gotta-”

     The Devil’s groans erupt into laughter.

     As he unravels himself, so does Cas, who reassumes fighting posture as if his life force wasn’t sputtering like an expiring light. And, for a moment, they simply study each other. Measuring up. Noting weak-points. Strategizing.

     Dean sees Lucifer’s eyes flash red and once again bucks at his bonds.

     “I thought we’d been down this road, Cassie-boy. You know it doesn’t end well for you,” the Devil taunts. “Stab me as many times as you like with that little twig of yours; it won’t kill me.”

     Cas’ irises rev up to a brilliant white outline. “I’m willing to test that theory.”

     The hair on Dean’s arms turn on their ends. Energy crackles in the air, sifting cobwebs and lifting particulates. It’s an electrical fire hanging in the air, leaving a burnt taste on Dean’s tongue. He watches the two brothers—sometimes he has to remind himself Cas is actually related to these assholes—in equal parts fascination and terror, nerves shot from the sheer emotional toll of the day’s events but clinging on to that last possibility of hope. The Winchester way.

     Yet this encounter does not end in flames, demolished property, or a _Dragon Ball Z_ -style shootout. It ends merely with a smirk.

     As Lucifer’s lips curl, Dean catches the final glimpse he makes towards the entrance, and he _knows_. The Devil senses Dean’s recognition seconds before he vanishes, turning upon him wearing that sideways smirk, an expression Dean immediately recognizes as one that may haunt his memory forever.

     The familiar _whoosh_ of wings heralds the collapse of the energy confining him but also the “wall” keeping the vampires at bay. Their thunderous, snarling pandemonium bursts through like a sonic boom. It drowns out Dean’s initial shout of warning as his hands outstretch in the nick of time, saving him from a face-full of grimy, verminous cavern floor—not to mention the puddle of his own brother’s blood. He swears to himself he will never mention the words “puddle”, “blood” and “Sam” in the same sentence again. Never.

     Slipping and sliding in the substance that shall not be named, he crawls to his brother’s side and frantically searches for something with which to arm himself. The vamps funnel hungrily through the entrance, toppling over each other and dispersing until he can no longer see Cas at all. The first to inevitably fall does so close enough that she can latch onto one of his brother’s Blundstones, pulling and clawing at it as her lower body is trampled. Dean slides himself beside Sam and begins to kick at her with his own boots, but it’s only successful at drawing her interest away from Sam—which, he supposes, is a form of success after all. But as more and more vampires topple over next to her, it becomes very clear that it is a temporary success at best.

     “Cas!” he yells, grunting recurrently between kicks. Then, again, straining his lungs, “Cas!”

     His foot firmly in the grip of one vampire and another crawling up to reach his midsection, Dean is about to try for a third time when the corner of the room suddenly ignites with a white light. It stirs instantaneous dread in the elder Winchester’s bones, and Dean watches it spread as long as he can bear. He latches onto his brother, tucks his head deep into his plaid shirt, squeezes his eyes shut against the blinding beams, and waits for the unavoidable. For the light to die down and bring his best friend along with it.

     Yet, the few seconds of sightlessness blends into many, and the squall-like crescendo morphs into a shrill, penetrating ring. Dean is unexpectantly reminded not of broken wings scorched into the ground around him but of shattered windows and bleeding ears. Of molted eye sockets, clattering metal panels, and the shit-faced look he had on his face when he first heard that gruff voice say, _“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”_

     As the striking light begins to dissipate, Dean unfurls slightly prematurely to a room still blanketed in a soft, chalky glow. It steadily retracts itself from the far edges of the room and unveils its carnage like a magician’s tablecloth. Corpses strewn in awkward positions. A pile several feet high at the door. The fresh stink of scalded flesh. And, yet, it is the distinct stillness and quiet that strikes Dean the most. With the raucous and bestial frenzy still fresh in his mind, he glances over the scene in a haze.

     Eventually, the ringing that was once deafening fades to nothingness and leaves him hearing a lingering echo. It is as those remnants finally fade away that his neck cranes to where the light was originally emanating, and he is stunned to find Cas, trench-coat and all, already edging to their position. The crack of a reactionary smile is quickly washed away, however, when he notices that the angel is only utilizing one elbow in the slow, agonizing crawl towards them. The other remains clasped tightly on his stab wounds which continue to sheen and shimmer between his fingers.

     He looks back at his brother, only half-surprised to find that his hand had, at some point without thinking, found its way back to Sam’s neck. It dawns on him as strange: he was now hoping—hell, praying—that his Sammy was still bleeding. Because, well, if he wasn’t…

     Cas’ punctuated grunt signals his arrival. He settles by Sam’s head and levels Dean with a sideways glance filled with so much goddamn dogged determinedness that it almost manages to persuade Dean he has nothing to worry about. _Almost._

     “Do you have enough juice?” Dean chokes out. Dammit, looking at his brother’s slack face again was a bad idea.

     Cas stretches his free hand across Sam’s body and lays it above Dean’s. “I have to,” he says, cobalt eyes swelling with sympathy. “It’s Sam.”

     Dean sits in stunned silence long enough that it is Cas who gently but urgently guides his fingers away from the wound. He doesn’t fight the movement, nor is he entirely convinced that he feels it at all. His senses are rendered numb. It is his body, but it’s roughly as though he’s looking down upon himself. Upon tattered jackets and maroon-spattered jeans, carnage reminiscent of war, and the empty frame of his dying brother, splayed out like a corpse at a violent crime scene.

     Upon his expiring will.

     Cas evens his hand over the mottled mess of his brother’s neck, and the light, which at first sputters, baths over ghostly pale skin. He stares unblinkingly at the angel, watches his eyelids close and his jaw grate against the increasing strain. He stares at the blaze of divine light. He stares at his brother’s unswervingly slack features, and he stares at his palms, crevices stained and tacked by crimson.

     Then, as swiftly as the light was conjured, it is gone. Dean detects the alteration out of his peripheral, and it immediately saps his thinly-veiled guard. Cas’ body and arm goes slack along with it, the latter of which landing on Sam’s chest with a soft but quaking thump.

     Dean inhales.

     Exhales.

     Neither body moves.

     “No,” he mutters breathlessly. “No, no, no…”

     He shifts forward, passes an anxious glimpse at the angel who remains down and stationary, and then, with a curse, examines his brother’s neck. It’s still coated with a thick coat of blood, but miraculously, the flesh once ravaged is now whole again.

     He puts a finger to Sam’s pulse.

     Nothing.

     “God dammit! No!” He changes tactics, pats at his brother’s cheeks, because he honestly doesn’t know what the hell else to do. “Come on, Sammy. Come on! Get up!”

     In the haste, his elbow bumps Cas’ limp arm. It drops off Sam’s body without protest, landing in a heap amongst his other limbs. Dean pauses and finds himself gaping at the scene. A fresh puddle of blood collects opposite him, trailing through a loop in Cas’ trench-coat and down towards the mound of dead vamps. Blood that may as well be his own. Blood that will congeal alongside Sam’s.

     Blood spilt because he wasn’t good enough.

     A tear tracks down his cheek. His vision spirals.

     From beside him, a mighty gasp is expelled.

     His head shoots around just as Sam springs into a sitting position, wild eyes scanning the room and obviously not liking what they are seeing. Dean, in hindsight, couldn’t blame him. Between the gore and the multitude of bodies, it had to rank right up there in the running for “most terrifying places to wake up in”. Though Hell would always be tough to top.

     “Easy. Easy!” he calms, grappling to control his brother’s flailing extremities. “You’re alright, Sammy. You’re alright.”

     Sam’s wide pupils finally settle in on him, and the calmness it instills over him is instantaneous. “Dean?”

     He’s so overwhelmed that he can hardly find the words.

     “Yeah. Yeah. It’s me.” He squeezes his brother’s shoulder tight, as if to reinforce the message.

     Sam stares back at him, scanning his face for clues. Dean takes it as a cue and quickly swipes a hand across his cheeks to wipe away any traces of his tears. They’re clearly not doing a lot to help reassure either of them.

     Unsurprisingly, the moment of realization crosses Sam rather suddenly, and he instantly tries at his neck, touching down and pulling back several times before he's fully convinced.

     Dean waits it out patiently, stifling the urge to snicker. “We really should be used to this by now.”

     Sam, judging by his blank expression, is less inclined to laugh it off. “What happened?”

     “A lot,” he answers with an alleviated snuffle. “A lot, Sam. When they drug you off, I thought I’d…”

     Sam does him a favor and interrupts before his emotion can bubble over the surface again. “How’d you bring me back?”

     “Cas…Cas did. Killed all those vamps too. Pretty badass, actually.” He gives his brother a clasp on the back and sifts around to their new addressee practically beaming. “Ya hear that, Mr. Comatose?”

     The snicker that follows is broken midway as he finds himself staring at another motionless body, listening intently—again—for the least sign of breathing. He’s met only with the subtle creak of the attic wood surrounding them. He glances back at his brother; any sort of relief from his brother’s face is wiped clean. The pit in his stomach has officially made its unwelcome return.

     He can hardly breathe as Sam reaches over to turn their friend’s body over. He’s picturing the immense torrent of light. Sam shielding his eyes. An imprint of feathers hidden beneath the drying mass of-

     “Dean…Dean!”

     His neck twists around so violently it cracks. Sam indeed has Cas’ body overturned, his gargantuan back turned towards Dean so that it obscures all but the angel’s black, grime-spotted dress shoes. They remain painfully motionless.

     “Dean!”

     It’s the frantic, bursting nature to Sam’s voice that snaps his attention back more than its volume.

     “He’s still breathing!”

     Dean’s body is already shuffling around his brother and to the other side of their angel when his mind catches up to him. He finds himself kneeling, hand reaching out and coming to rest beneath Cas’ nose. The puff that tickles his finger is nearly imperceptible, and yet it sends jolts of life into his veins.

     “You’re a tough son of a bitch, you know that, Cas?”

     Half expecting one of his friends patented squinted head tilts, it digs the thorn even deeper into his side when the angel's eyelids don’t even flicker. He pats the angel’s chest as a sort of compromise and rests his palm there, feeling its shallow yet consistent rise and fall.

     Sam gapes between them. “What do we do?”

     Breathes rapidly quickening, he casts a glance at the wounds where, deep beneath the blood and flesh, a miniscule light splutters. Dean can hardly notice it; one slight change in his angle and it’s like he’s staring at an empty, discarded vessel.

     He swallows, buries the thought deep with the memories they attempt to evoke, and slips into soldier-mode.

     “Get pressure on that,” he orders routinely.

     Sam gives him a look but does as he’s told nonetheless. There’s an audible squelch when his hands clamp down, but still no movement from Castiel.

     Sam peers back at him, destitute and sullen. “Will it even help?”

     A chip in his armor.

     He pauses.

     “I don’t know, but it can’t hurt.”

     His brother’s gaze softens, and he has to look away. Part of Dean is well-aware that Sam can see right through his disguises, but often the other parts are too afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t try anyway.

     Heart thudding beneath his breast, Dean's tortured gaze trails around the room, scanning every splinter and cobweb as if there would be anything nearby that could help them. The thought of praying briefly crosses his mind. This is an alternate reality without the Winchesters, but they know it has its own Bobby. Maybe that means it has its own Cas as well, and if they could trick a few angels into thinking _this_ Cas was _their_ Cas, perhaps they would have a chance at saving him. Of course, these angels would also likely smite _them_ on the spot, so it isn't the best of plans.

     Their only other option, though, is Gabriel, who, Dean realizes with a sigh, is not only miles away but also wields a shriveling, cowering grace that’s about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

     No less convinced of what to do, he checks back in to find Sam peeking at Cas’ punctures. He watches Sam’s countenance closely as he draws away, but it is not reassuring. He can tell Sam, too, is trying to mask the extent to which he’s been rattled, but Dean also knows his little brother too well to fall for the façade.

     Sam senses his attention. "What the hell happened? The vamps have angel blades?"

     Dean balks. He knew the question would come eventually, but he was honestly hoping it would be later. Much later. Or never, for that matter. He would tell Sam when he was ready, and right now he was not ready.

     What was he supposed to say? “Hey, Sam. The Devil that wore you as his meatsuit? Tortured you? Broke your noggin’ all those years ago? Yeah, the same one we thought we’d trapped for once. He’s… Well, he escaped—probably killed Rowena—and now he’s in Apocalypse-ville too, hoping to do who-knows-what. He smoked some angels on the way here, stole one of their blades and skewered Cas with it. But, yeah, don’t worry, because he did leave before it could get _really_ bad. He might still pop in at any second, but… Yeah, he’s not here, like, _now._ ”

     Yep. That sounded great. Definitely his best option.

     He suspires. "No. It was…” He tests the waters; Sam’s pupils are saucers staring deep into his soul. The moment the puppy dog eyes appear, he knows he is done for. He can’t lie without feeling like he kicked a downed dog. “It was Lucifer.”

     The horror wears Sam like a glove. “What? B-but we-”

     “He got free. Somehow. Look, Sammy, I pretty much know as much as you, but for the time being, we should really get him out of here.”

     Sam ogles, and for a brief moment, Dean is deathly afraid he may have to tell him the full story, but thankfully—mercifully—his shoulders relax, and Dean knows he’s relented.

     "Gabriel?"

     Dean nods, not one to press the issue, and they quickly work in tandem to get Cas sitting up.

     "You think he can help?"

     Dean sighs. "I don't know, Sam. Stop asking stupid questions."

     Each taking one arm, they heave Cas onto dangling feet and gather his weight between them when he inevitably begins to fall. Dean grunts. He forgot how heavy the little nerd-angel was. He wraps an arm around Cas’ back to balance him as Sam gathers his end. By the time they’re both set, they’re out of breath and drenched in sweat. And Sam is…laughing?

     Dean glares past Cas’ hanging head. "Find this funny, Sammy?"

     "No. No, of course not. It's just...I'm pretty sure Cas said something similar to me before. ‘Don't ask stupid questions.’"

     Dean raises an eyebrow.

     Sam’s lips tug at a grin. “He was drunk.”

     Dean can’t help but smile too, though the mood is quickly sapped when Cas’ foot catches on a vamp corpse and the Winchesters are all that keep his skull from splitting against the floor. The stupid son of a bitch also said once, _"You know me; always happy to bleed for the Winchesters."_ And it was yet again proving to be all too literal for Dean's liking.

     As they carefully maneuver around the minefield of carcasses, Dean distracts himself by filling in Sam on the rest of the Lucifer story. Although, truthfully, it’s not much of a story at all. He’s all-but through it when they breach the shadows, and with each step, their vision virtually dims to nothing.

     Sam’s pace slows considerably. “How’d the hell you see through this?”

     That’s an easy one.

     “I didn’t,” Dean deadpans, and he doesn’t need his sight to know Sam’s giving him one of those looks. “Thankfully I got a ride on express train Cas.”

     They both adjust their grips at the mention, steadily prodding one careful step at a time into the arid, black air in front of them. Dean guides them by memory the best he can, but he’d even be the first to admit he wasn’t in a passable mindset to be able to memorize curves and turns. He was lucky to get as far as he did before Cas went full-on ninja guide dog and saved his ass. That was the hard truth of it.

     It’s a long while before Sam breaks the silence that’d settled between them. His voice is low, spoken barely above a whisper when he does, faint and hesitant enough to provide a bodiless impression even in the presence of the brightest environment. “He’s gonna be okay, Dean.”

     Dean can’t decide whether it’s a statement or a question, so he claps back, tone verging on volatile, “Damn straight he is.”

     One mere step more, and he swears he can feel the breath on his neck before the cursed voice gushes.

     “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

     A chill runs down Sam’s spine. It reverberates through Cas’ body like a shockwave and strikes Dean’s fingertips. Dean’s brows furrow, fists enclosing, but their awkward pivot is interrupted sooner than it starts.

     Fingers snap, and the Winchester’s world bursts with white.

**Author's Note:**

> I know what you're thinking. Another Infinity War "Snapture" moment?
> 
> I know. I know. There's been a lot of those lately.
> 
> This one, I promise, was unintentional. I didn't even notice it until I went to post the story here. I thought about making the excuse that I wrote it before seeing the film, but then I was suddenly questioning when the episode even came out--because you fuckers would no doubt go lookin' and comparing the dates in some quest to fact check me (no judgement; I'd do the very same)--so then I of course had to Google it to beat y'all to the punch.
> 
> Anyways, it turns out Beat the Devil aired a few days after Infinity War was released in theaters. I had, indeed, seen it by then, so I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that I don't have an excuse for using a Snapture-ish ending. 
> 
> However! However... I'm calling myself on it now before you guys can, so...
> 
> Suck it.
> 
> And thank you for reading.


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